Post by ben3411 on Feb 6, 2024 13:32:29 GMT -8
All my life I've had perverse nightmares.
The themes would be similar, but the imagery would vary - Either I'd be sexually seduced and/or engulfed by an unknown woman, or feel aroused by my mother's presence in the dream. Upon waking, I'd feel a deep sense of shame for having these feelings.
My memory tends to be poor, especially before the age of 14. I don't believe there was physical sexual abuse, but my mother has always had a very dominant personality and would say odd things, like:
- "I always felt like you children were a part of me" and
- "I never pressured you to get married"
She divorced my father when I was 8 years old. Growing up, it always felt like my sister and I had to walk on eggshells around our mother because of her unpredictable temper - She would scream, yell, and hit us when we were disobedient. I'm pretty sure she got off on the power she had over us little ones (she was proud of how close I was with my younger sister, and attributed it to us both being afraid of her). Nowadays they call that trauma bonding!
My sister recognizes my mother's manic personality, but hasn't suffered from relationship issues as I have. It's always been difficult for me to be emotionally intimate with women (couldn't date a girl for more than a few weeks without freaking out) and I was completely dissociated from my feelings/body for the first 28 years of my life.
Over the next 10 years I explored various spiritual practices to try and recover my sense of self, with limited success. I ended my first long-term relationship of 5 years recently because I felt totally controlled by my fiance, and the loss of what little personal identity I had managed to cultivate prior to the start of our engagement was taking a toll on my physical health.
It feels better being single again, but I am in my late 30s now and don't know what it will take for me to heal from these losses. Having a family of my own feels impossible. At this point I'd settle for being able to have a relatively healthy relationship with a woman, though I am in no hurry to try again anytime soon.
Thankfully I have finally decided to start seeking therapy and support groups, and have gone "no contact" with my mother until she can learn to respect my boundaries. In recent years she's mellowed some, but never apologizes for her behavior, and probably never will.
Having discovered the "covert emotional incest" phenomenon, I feel less ashamed when having these dreams, but am no less disturbed by them.